Words

Words. All they are, all they ever will be, are words. Broken down into tiny pieces you find syllables and letters, substantiating nothing but small sounds. We have high expectations for these sounds, stringing them together to try and communicate our thoughts and beliefs in order to free the mind from the magnitude and complexity of the data that thrusts itself upon us all, every second of every day. To think of it all at once, the enormity of this world, is overwhelming and paralyzing. I used to think about eternity as a child, typical that I, as a child would be thinking of such things. In Sunday school they would teach us that we would live in heaven forever one day, time unending, and it would bring me to tears. Not the "yay for never being afraid again, playing with friends and eating ice cream all day long joyous sort of tears," but tears of terror. I can't think of anything in the entire world that I want to last forever, without end. To this day, the concept gives me far more anxiety than it should. Literally I am going to have to change the subject because I can feel my chest tightening and my heart rate increasing and now I can’t breathe. Dear Lord I hate being this crazy. All that to say It drives me insane when I stop to think about the fact that I am so incredibly overwhelmed and there is all this awful stuff that happened that I am supposed to talk about, and it all comes down to me having to depend on letters and sounds to articulate these feelings that I know will never have the capability to encapsulate the depth of what is going on. And in that realization it all makes me want to hide in my closet and never come out. Ever.

In my session today I was talking to Sam about this weird phenomenon that happens to me from time to time that drives me crazy...quite literally. I have always been very sensitive to the things that I watch. From a young age I couldn’t watch things with intense emotion or violence or anything of that nature without having nightmares. But in my teenage years it got worse. I have this memory of being away at college watching a movie with my boyfriend of two years or so over at his brother’s apartment. He was aware of my sensitivity and so we normally picked out movies together but we got to his brothers and found out we were watching legends of the fall. I was able to sit through the movie but all the while I was feeling like I wanted to die. That sounds dramatic, I know, but that is the weird feeling I am talking about. I smiled, I pretended to be normal, but the minute we reached his car I had a total meltdown. I was hysterically sobbing, engaged in a full panic attack, and I couldn’t explain why. I just kept saying, why did you let that happen? I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t really blame him. But I felt so emotionally overwhelmed that I literally wanted to die. This world is SO big and SO unpredictable and filled with SO much gut wrenching pain and I didn’t want to live in that constant fear of when the next bad thing was going to happen. But I felt trapped in it, unable to escape. So I avoided intense movies. I avoided awful sad stories. I avoided anything that brought about that feeling that someone was waiting behind the next corner and that they were going to pin me down and strangle me because I was walking too fast or too slow or talking too loud. Or maybe it would be because I was just too pretty or too nice. You see there was no rule book to follow, so I avoided it all. I was defective and crazy and hiding in closets is not how grownups behave, so I overcompensated in other areas to prove my self sufficiency, my independence. I was an actress of sorts, pretending to be a normal fearless adult, it was my leading role. So this weird want to die feeling, it happens all the time. But, when it happened again last night I was caught off guard. I sort of knew the story line of Phantom of the Opera, and didn’t remember it being particularly sad. I didn’t expect that sitting so close, with all the special effects (fireworks, bursts of flames, explosions, etc) would trigger my PTSD so strongly. I actually thought, by the end of the night, all things considered I had handled my stupid startle response quite well. But the moment I got into my car I wanted to die. Literally. I can’t handle this world. I can’t handle the anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen next. It is all too big and I feel so very small and everything feels so out of my control and all I am left with are words and they aren’t enough to articulate this feeling...it’s this feeling that is so familiar and so tangible and so palpable that I can literally taste it. Its incapacitating. As I drove home my whole body was trembling. I felt so sad for the Phantom and how alone he was. I was overwhelmed that I had to say goodbye to my mom before her vacation back east on Saturday. I again felt like this world is awful and horrible and then you die and there is eternity and I am trapped and stuck and I have this defect that I can’t tolerate it. Why am I so crazy? Why can other people tolerate it and I can't? So as I sat and thought about it last night it brought me back to something Lori said recently. She was talking about how people with eating disorders use their eating disorder as a voice and ultimately use it as a way to have people take care of them and meet the needs they can’t articulate...or at least that is what I heard, so something to that effect. (Which, I might add, I was annoyed with because it implied that I was just trying to get attention.) But then I had this realization of how that did in fact fit for me...or a version of it I guess. My eating disorder has been my parent for as long as I can remember. I was never too much for it. When I was afraid or overwhelmed it would help numb the intense feelings. Since I didn’t have the words to articulate the intensity of what was going on the eating disorder DIDN'T NEED WORDS, it just understood and took the pain away. It wouldn’t use my fears against me and it certainly wouldn’t die and abandon me. No, it held me. It protected me. It shielded me from the people who hurt me. It made me feel more attractive so that I felt more in control of men, instead of men controlling me. It took away the hell inside my head and made this big scary crazy world feel somewhat manageable...as long as I avoided strong emotions. It allowed me to function instead of curling up into a corner of a closet and become a puddle, a worthless and useless non functioning member of society. It enabled me to be a highly functioning, intelligent, compassionate human being. And I hate to admit it, but on days like yesterday, when my defect was in full swing, I didn’t want to let go of it. I didn’t want to recover. Anorexia has been the parent I never had and no one else can really ever be there for me...understand me without words. Protect me.  Because in my brain recovery is very lonely. I can’t call you or anyone at all hours of the night when the memories are raging. I can’t depend on people to protect me, because there is no such thing as protection. So I ended my night last night by praying to want to want freedom...because right now, in the midst of all the pain...some days I don’t want it. And i’m sure you are thinking, you are a grown ass woman, you can protect yourself. You don’t need anyone else to save you, save yourself. Don't act like a helpless victim. But the problem is that this is how I have been doing that. It’s not right, but neither is laying on that bed, knowing something bad was coming, but not having any idea of how long it would take for him to return or what kind of torture he would invent this time. And I got to choose to live with those. Instant memories, or be numb. So as I talked to Sam about my defect today and asked her what could possibly be wrong with me because I always feel so damn...and then I stopped as it hit me. I stopped talking and just looked at her. "It all just came together didn’t it," Sam asked. All I could do is nod my head. "Because you always feel so YOUNG" She questioned? Why do all roads lead back to that same stupid place. To that small little girl? The world felt so out of control and so mean and so scary and so awful and there weren’t words...there still aren’t words. I just wanted to die and intense emotions bring it all back. All of it. And who is safe when no one is safe? Damn it all...because saying what words I have doesn't help. I have said them and nothing has changed. Is there any hope?  All I know right now is that I am desperate for a life other than the one I have been living. But some days, I don’t know if I have enough courage to risk the world strangling me from behind one more time. I am not a helpless victim, the world being my abuser. No. Instead I feel like a 4 year old trying to be a grown up and she is in charge and I don't understand why. Some days I think I just might close my eyes and wake up to find out it was all just a horrible dream...and I have been given the miracle to do it all over again. This time i would do it right. I promise. Because I would choose a different path. But I'm scared it's too late. What is wrong with me? I just can't tolerate feeling this young, this out of control, and this needy any longer. Help me find a way to save myself or to medicate away this indescribable feeling...it's too much and I can't be left alone with only words to survive.